


Here I Go (mumbling)

by zenelly



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, First Meetings, M/M, Medical student Leorio, Meet-Cute, Minor Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Trans Kurapika, an enigma as ever kurapika, is this a meet-cute, it could be, it isn't but like it could be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27255097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenelly/pseuds/zenelly
Summary: Once a week, or once every couple of weeks depending on how his schedule works out, Leorio meets the love of his life at the laundromat. Today, he's actually going to talk to him.It goes nothing like how he planned.
Relationships: Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 33
Kudos: 194





	Here I Go (mumbling)

**Author's Note:**

> initially the idea was for this to be a lot longer but then i got most of the way through it and realized that i didn't want to do that anymore. I just wanted it to be silly and fun and out here, so here it is.
> 
> Title from "My Freeze Ray" from Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog because i am, as eddy said, "a fucking geek" so! here we are

He’s there again.

This isn’t really a surprise. Everyone needs to do laundry and surely this stranger is no different from any other person patronizing the laundromat. Prim and proper, he sits cross-legged on the floor with his back ramrod straight, intent on the tumbling clothes in front of him. His hoodie is otherwise form-obscuring, but his posture cannot be doubted even for a second. 

Leorio, slouching across three low chairs on the other side of the washers, wonders what kind of core muscles he has to maintain such good posture. The stranger hasn’t wavered once in the hour that Leorio’s been here, aside from fetching a few items from the washer and laying the two pieces out to air dry, nude and black side by side.

“You’re staring again,” Gon murmurs. As much as he _can_ murmur, which means it’s more of a regular person’s speaking volume.

“Yeah, if you’re gonna be a creep, can you at least do it when we aren’t around. Don’t implicate us in your weird old pervert crimes,” Killua adds without looking up from where Gon is very carefully painting his nails. He doesn’t bother pretending to keep his voice down at all.

“Brat,” Leorio snipes back. He doesn’t mention that he and Gon have only known each other for a collective total of two hours, that they met just last week because Gon heard the start-up chime for a mobile game he plays on Killua’s phone and is a horrific extrovert who can just start conversations with strangers like that’s a normal thing people do. Which, really, it is, probably. More normal than going on week six of finding himself at the same laundromat, at the same time, staring at a hot blond with perfect posture and hoping that he ducks his gaze down fast enough to not get caught.

God, what is Leorio even _doing_ with his life?

(Arguably med school, but Leorio’s running hard on the fumes of his last eighteen hour shift and the looming knowledge that he has to be back tomorrow. For right now, he’s doing laundry. And staring. Marginal success with both.)

The buzzer goes off, bringing Leorio’s clothes to an ungainly halt after their final spin cycle. Leorio levers himself out of his sprawl with a groan. Maybe he can talk to Hot Blond. He could strike up a conversation when he brings over his clothes to the dryer. Something that isn’t just “Using this one?” but an actual _topic_ like, books, or politics, or no, not politics except also yes politics because if the guy is an asshole, Leorio would like to know up-front. Doesn't seem like he's likely to be, but people can be surprising. Movies? Does this guy like movies?

How do people _talk_ to each other? Leorio’s group of friends primarily consists of strays he finds, or really, strays that Gon brings home and Leorio takes care of. Fuck, this is impossible.

No.

No, that’s quitter talk.

Leorio isn’t a quitter, god damn it! He’s twenty-five and two years into his residency and he’s doing _just fine_ and only contemplates moving out into the woods twice a week! He’s _great!_

He can ask what the Hot Blond’s hobbies are! Or, at least, he can say “Hi.”

Thus bolstered, Leorio shoves the last of his shirts into his basket. He stands up tall, shoulders back. Takes a deep, steadying breath and-

Ah shit.

The stranger isn’t there anymore.

A quick glance around doesn’t show him anywhere, and Leorio wilts a little. Shit. There goes his shot, then. Still, clothes are clothes and still need to be washed. Dried. Made clean again instead of scuzzy and covered in questionably obtained human fluids. Leorio hoists the basket up to one of the tall dryers and starts adding clothes.

“Ah you finally moved. If you kept staring at me like that, I was going to have to charge a fee,” a light, wry voice chimes from near his shoulder.

Leorio closes his eyes. Mourns the death of his dignity, what little of it he kept around as a party trick to whip out while he was on rotation.

Sure enough, when he opens his eyes the blond is right there beside him, arching a shapely brow as he shovels newly dry clothes out of the upper dryer, all of five and a half feet tall and absolutely ready to kick Leorio’s ass.

Well, when in doubt, act confident. Leorio sucks a breath in through his teeth, giving the Hot Blond a once-over. “Is it by the minute?”

Hot Blond’s mouth dips in an appraising smile. “I usually do pay-per-view.”

Leorio ducks his head and laughs. He isn’t used to flirting, and definitely not used to flirting when his haphazard attempts seem to even work. “Well, I can appreciate someone who knows what they’re worth. Can I get a name?”

“For what? Staring at me like some kind of creep for the last six weeks?”

“No, just so I can stop thinking of you as Hot Blond in my head like some kind of creep.”

“Not very clever, are you? And what makes you think I care about what you think of me?” With a put-upon sigh, Hot Blond shakes his hair out before looking up at Leorio through his lashes, a little coquettish. “It’s Kurapika, though. Yours?”

“Leorio.”

“What do you do, Leorio? For a man that wears as many suits as I’ve seen you in, I’m surprised you even come to a laundromat.”

“Not all my clothes are suits, first of all. And this is my laundry suit,” Leorio says mildly. “My day-to-day wear still needs washing and I feel bad about not wearing this except to med school interviews so. Here we are.”

“A medical student, hm?”

“And glorified babysitter right now,” Leorio adds, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at whatever nonsense Gon and Killua are getting up to. Then he immediately curses himself. Yes, good plan. Show off how available you are by bringing immediate attention to the teenagers you’re supposed to be looking after.

Despite himself, though, Kurapika looks amused. “Is this the part where you hit on me with medical pick-up lines, Mr. Doctor?”

“I think it would be Dr. Mister, if it was anything,” says Leorio. His mouth is a million miles ahead of his mind when he keeps talking like an absolute buffoon. “And yeah, there’s nothing sexier than me telling you that you seem a little dehydrated and you should probably do something about that. Do you have a regular sleep schedule? Because, you should. This close, I can finally see the bags under your eyes and I’m a little worried you’re gonna pass out.”

Kurapika laughs, then looks startled at the sound as he keeps laughing, eyes wide and the back of his hand pressed charmingly to his mouth. It covers nothing of his smile, nothing of the way red creeps up his face, and Leorio grins back at him as Kurapika gets his breath back under control.

Giggling around the edges of his words, Kurapika says, “Surprisingly, that still sort of worked.”

“That says terrible things about your standards.”

Kurapika keeps chuckling to himself as he fishes the last of his clothes out and Leorio’s chest does not squeeze at the way Kurapika goes on his tiptoes to fish a sock out of the very back of the dryer. Not even a little bit. That would be a bad idea, to feel so fond of someone he’s just now met for the first time.

A slender fingered hand extends in his direction. Leorio blinks at it (not dumbly, but you know, like a little dumbly.)

“Give me your phone,” Kurapika enunciates slowly. Delicate fingers curl in slightly towards his palm, the chain bracelet he has on jangling. “Unless I’m misreading this?”

“What? No. I-“ Leorio fumbles with his slacks, the way Kurapika’s gaze drops and darkens shivering deliciously up his spine. God, why won’t his fingers cooperate? Holding out his phone, he unlocks it with a quick press of his fingerprint.

Taking it with a smile, Kurapika busies himself with the phone. Over his shoulder, Leorio sees Gon and Killua, jaws dropped, and he subtly flips them off. Hah! Take that! Leorio can totally meet people and get their number like a normal person! Not everyone has to have extrovert-soulmate powers!

“Here.”

Leorio scrambles to grab his phone from Kurapika, who smiles sweetly up at him. A radiant smile, slightly sharp around the edges. The kind of smile men would do absolute dumbshit things to see directed their way, and Leorio regrettably counts himself among that number. Good thing Leorio’s studying to be a doctor and is marginally more composed on the outside, (though he does have to muffle a whimper.) “Hey, uh. Thanks, for this,” he stutters out.

Kurapika hoists his laundry basket into his arms. He cocks his head, hair swaying with the motion. A single, crimson dangling earring swings into view with the motion, and Leorio traces its arc against Kurapika’s neck with newly hungry eyes. “No,” Kurapika says after some consideration. “Thank _you_.”

And then, like a vision, like a breath, he leaves.

Leorio doesn’t stare after him like a besotted idiot, but it’s a near thing. He chucks the last of his clothes into the dryer and shakily turns it on before scuttling back to where Killua has migrated into Gon’s lap.

“Hah!” he says. “Take _this!_ ”

Gon and Killua blink at Leorio’s phone screen, shoved very unceremoniously in their faces. “Uh, Leorio?”

“No, no, don’t-“ Killua starts, but Gon continues.

“I think your hot blond just Venmo’d himself twenty dollars and ditched you.”

“What? No, I got his phone-“ Leorio looks at his phone, and-

Well.

Sure enough, that’s his Venmo account open. And sure enough, Kurapika has indeed sent himself twenty dollars. _“Next time you wanna take a look so bad, you can pay for the privilege more directly_ ,” Kurapika commented in the “Memo” section, followed by a link.

Leorio closes his mouth with a click.

“Well?” asks Gon.

“He did Venmo himself twenty dollars. He also linked his onlyfans.”

Killua wrinkles his nose. “Are you gonna subscribe?”

Leorio looks down at his phone and grins, sharp and irate and bafflingly endeared. “Y’know what, I just might.”

Killua wrinkles his nose harder, his entire face crumpling into a rictus of disgust. “Gross.”

“Nice,” says Gon approvingly. “Get those nudes. Support sex workers.”

“I will,” Leorio says as he pulls up Kurapika’s profile. The information there is minimal, but the header image is a startling shot of the dip of Kurapika’s waist, bright blue and gold lingerie a tease out of sight, and Leorio only bemoans the loss of his coffee fund a little bit as he clicks the subscribe button and then the message icon.

He types, “ _you really venmo’d yourself twenty dollars?”_

The reply, a few minutes later, read, “ _Be glad you made me laugh. Initially I was planning on starting as high as I could and working my way down until something cleared from there.”_

_“we love a man who knows his self worth. enjoy the money, then!”_

_“Enjoy the nudes :P”_

_“is it crass to say I will?”_

_“I invited you for a reason, Leorio. Look all you like.”_

“Hah,” Leorio mumbles under his breath. “See I can _totally_ talk to people.”

**Author's Note:**

> there might? be more? i might add some one shots. might make this a thing. who knows. support trans sex worker kurapika. i have many thoughts about this au and you may ask questions either at my twitter (@zenellyraen) or [my cc](https://curiouscat.qa/zenelly)


End file.
